By Doug Finke
The State Journal-Register, Springfield, Ill.
Staff assaults in Illinois prisons increased 51 percent in the last two years, the union representing corrections officers said Thursday and it said state policies bear much of the blame.
The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees said state prisons are understaffed while also dealing with violent inmates who are being reclassified and placed in lower security prisons, creating hazards for employees.
“Cost-driven operational changes and legally imposed policy changes have combined to significantly increase outbreaks of violence, resulting in a growing number of assaults on correctional employees,” said AFSCME executive director Roberta Lynch at a news conference in Springfield.
Lynch said that using the Department of Corrections’ own figures, there has been a 51 percent increase in assaults on employees in state prisons. She said figures show there has been a 49 percent increase in assaults in juvenile facilities.
“In both cases, those assaults increased even though the inmate population declined,” she said.
Lynch tied the increases to a number of factors, including the lack of penalties imposed by the department on inmates who commit assaults on staff.
“There is a growing unwillingness on the part of DOC and (the Department of Juvenile Justice) to issue and implement clear penalties for rules violations, even for violent assaults,” she said.
Corrections acknowledged an increase in staff assaults from 2015 to 2017, but put the number at a 34 percent increase, not a 51 percent increase. The department counts assaults by fiscal year which runs from July 1 to June 30. AFSCME based its numbers on calendar year figures. For 2017, the union compiled the number of assaults reported so far this year and extended it to the end of the year.
Corrections also said that more than half of the staff assaults at state prisons involved inmates throwing a “liquid substance” at staff. It said that since 2000, the department has averaged about 1,282 staff injuries per year. That number dropped to 907 in the 2017 fiscal year that ended in June.
Lynch also said inmates are being reclassified for their security threat which has resulted in inmates convicted of violent crimes being moved from maximum security prisons to medium and minimum facilities. She said the reclassifications are being made by Corrections’ management without consulting staff who actually deal with the inmates.
“The number of assaults, we believe, bears witness to the flaws in that process,” Lynch said.
Lower security prisons have lower staffing requirements and cost less to operate, she said.
Although Corrections has hired additional prison guards in recent years, Lynch said there remains inadequate staffing in many prisons, which increases the risks to staff. She also said radios and other equipment used by guards to alert staff to trouble don’t always work.
Cody Dornes, a correctional officer at the East Moline Correctional Center, said the hilly terrain of the prison means radios issued to guards can’t be heard on all parts of the grounds. He also said staffing at the facility is inadequate. There was one female guard on overnight duty for a dorm with more than 100 inmates, he said. The guard was assaulted by a Class X felon who was serving time for aggravated vehicular hijacking.
Lynch said more staffing is needed but did not provide a number for additional guards the union believes are necessary. There are about 13,000 employees in the Department of Corrections.
“Management has got to care,” Lynch said. “They have to care about employee safety. We don’t want people to have to be injured in order for change to come about.”
Corrections Director John Baldwin said the department “rejects that without reservation” any notion that the agency does not care about employee safety.
“We work every day with 42,000 people who have been convicted of a felony. A lot of those are violent,” he said. “We work to reduce (assaults). Some days, some months we are very successful. Other days, other months we are not.”
The department is continuing to train staff in dealing with mentally ill inmates, who commit more than 70 percent of the assaults, he said.
“We can have a very major impact on those numbers of staff assaults if we start dealing more effectively with the people with mental illness,” Baldwin said.
He also said he “categorically” rejects the idea the department does not punish inmates who violate rules or assault staff.
Baldwin said equipment upgrades are the victim of budget restrictions. The current state budget does not provide money for improved equipment, he said.
Corrections is reclassifying inmates, but it is done based on their behavior in prison, treatment needs and progress to rehabilitation, said assistant director Gladyse Taylor.
“We have a lot of our population in the wrong place,” Baldwin added. “We are going to be sorting it out for the next year to put people in the level of security they earn. They earn by their behavior where we are going to be putting them.”
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(c)2017 The State Journal-Register, Springfield, Ill.